By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

For 8 months out of the year, Fletcher Shryock happily resides in a fifth-wheel camper. Instead of heading home to eastern Ohio after each Elite Series event, he opts to stay on the road and, well, fish.

He still considers himself a newcomer to the sport, having left behind a motocross career several years ago to focus on bass fishing. He is committed to closing the gap that he still feels exists between himself and the upper echelon of Elite Series – “Some of these guys were winning AOYs and Classics before I got on a dirt bike,” he quipped – so whenever he has the chance he’s on the water, learning. He won a Bassmaster Open in 2011 and qualified for the 2012 Elite Series, so he jumped right in and hasn’t looked back.

He admits it’s been a struggle at times – he has two top-12 finishes in five seasons – but he’s been able to cash checks with increasing frequency over the past two seasons, so he hopes that’s a sign that’s he starting to settle in and carve out a niche for himself.

In 2014, he managed one paycheck (47th place at Table Rock Lake) in eight events and he was among the last anglers to re-qualify for the ’15 Elite Series based on the criteria B.A.S.S. uses. In 2015, he finished in the money twice. This past season, he made the weekend in four events, logging three top-30 finishes.

“Compared to 2014 when I was on the cusp of getting booted out, things are 360 degrees better,” he said. “In 2016, I focused more on me as an angler more than anything. I’m still not happy with where I’m at, but I’m moving in the right direction. I’m hoping ’17 is the year it all comes together. People have come up to me and said, ‘Wow, you’re really doing well now.’ All I’m thinking is, ‘It’s about damn time.’”

More Committed

Compared to when he raced dirt bikes, Shryock now understands the level of commitment it takes to establish himself in an individual sport where most of the sponsorship and marketing responsibilities fall on his shoulders, not to mention his desire to perform at a high level.

He’s been fortunate to strike marketing deals with Pure Fishing (he has a signature series rod and reel combo and tackle bag) and Renegade Optics, which have afforded him some widespread exposure at the retail level. Now, he wants to back it up with strong tournament performances.

That’s why he spends gobs and gobs of time on the water. It doesn’t matter where he fishes. Often, it’s not a venue on the upcoming schedule, but he may stop for a day or two or a week and just fish to work on techniques and get more in tune with seasonal patterns.

“I probably fish more than anyone in the field,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I should beat everybody. I’ve been trying to crack the pro athlete code since I was 12. I made one supercross main event. Now I’m 31 and there are a lot of things I wish I would’ve done differently.

“I’m glad the racing thing didn’t work out. I have friends that made it and I respect the hell out of those guys, but I’m glad I didn’t have to go down that path. Looking back, I didn’t put all I should’ve or could’ve into it. Now, my girlfriend (Rosemary) is willing to travel with me and help me and it’s time to put everything into this, to live it, breathe it, sleep it.”

Rough Start

Shryock started the 2016 season in catch-up mode after B.A.S.S. penalized him for a rule violation that occurred on day 1 of the St. Johns River Elite Series. He’d caught 16-04 on the first day, but he had left his boat to push it off a sand bar later in the day and he was basically benched for the entire morning of day 2. Once he was back on the water, he scraped together nearly 10 pounds, but dropped 20 places (to 63rd) and missed the top-50 cut.

“I own what I did,” he said, “but five hours of fishing in the Elite Series, at the end of the year, if you give me back that time, I could’ve made the (Bassmaster) Classic. The year started off with a downer. I’m lucky I got out of it what I did.

“If you take that out of it and look at the decisions throughout the year without that, I could've been in the Classic. When I look at it that way, I’m doing things right.”

He bombed at Winyah Bay following the St. Johns to dig a bit of a hole to start the year. He rebounded with a 29th at the Bull Shoals/Norfork shared-venue event and a 25th at Wheeler Lake to finish April on a high note.

“At Bull Shoals, I was solid because I was able to flip,” he said. “At Norfork, it was a case of making something out of nothing. It wasn’t anything great, but it got me rolling.

“When I was at Wheeler, I was on nothing, but I was getting to the point where I was fishing so much that I started to gain confidence just fishing so I went and practiced all day (during the tournament) and made the top 25. For some reason, I always have this perception that during those three days of practice, I’m going to formulate something magical. In that tournament I just went blind and took what I’d learned and put it together.”

His worst finish of the year came at Toledo Bend, where he was 91st. After that, he spent close to three weeks fishing at Lake Fork, rather than travel home and back to the midwest for BASSFest at Lake Texoma.

“I learned a lot of stuff,” he said. “Did it help for Texoma? No. It didn’t really help for the rest of the season, but the things I learned in general will help me somewhere down the road.”

And it’s that somewhere down the road where he hopes to employ a more polished approach and take advantage of the experience he’s gained in his first five seasons with the Elite Series.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is to have confidence in yourself and not listen to the dock talk,” he said. “You can make something out of nothing. Don’t sweat it and have confidence you can make something happen.”

Notable

> BassFans may be familiar with the film production work Shryock and his brother, Hunter, have done over the past few years. Their most recent project under the 496 Films label is entitled Shryock Brothers: Untapped, which has evolved into a web series that chronicles their background and what life is like for two brothers working (and competing) in the fishing industry. The latest episode “Believeland” debuted this week. You can view it below: